End of Summer Update

It's been a summer of doing instead of reporting. After 7 years of teaching my need to paint for myself has grown stronger and harder to supress. This has collided with my schedule as well as a hand injury. After two demanding retreats where I was lifting etch presses, setting up classrooms, moving mountains of boxes of art supplies and so on I've found myself grounded with tendonitis. Insert a good swear word here.

Wrist brace, lots of icings, rest. I dont do that well. I was scheduled for a cortisone shot in the thumb joint but chickened out after reading about cortisone on the web.

So yesterday I did some painting and made a new journal with a canvas cover. Floppy canvas. I want this one to be as light as possible. I've experimented with wood, canvas board, acrylic panel and matboard as journal cover materials, all in an effort to get the weight down. So this one is the lightest yet.

The garden this summer was the best in years. We had perfect sunshine and dry weather. Everyone's calling it the year of the red tomato. Here's the dear one showing off some of his onion varieties.

Happiness is a productive garden around these parts.

From the left: Cippolini Bianco DiMagio, Tropeana Lunga, Noord Bloedrode, Yellow Flat Dutch.  

Here's a big one, Giant Red Pear, nearly 2 pounds for those of you not on my Instagram list.

We've been canning together. He does most of it; I'm just the person who stuffs the bottles.

These ruffled beauties are also Giant Red Pear tomatoes. (Grand Sasso or sel Franchi, they're so similar.)

I got a Spiralizer last week and used it one one of our neighbors' giant zuchinnis. The way to make the zukes really appetizing is to refrigerate the curls overnight and then use them in salads. The curls are soft at room temperature but after refrigeration they become crisp. Then I like to use salad dressing (my choice is 4 squirts of Chef Macee's Italian) and serve over greens, chopped garlic and tomatoes. Really yummy. Of course there is always the trick of serving in place of noodles in any noodle dish.

That's what's going on at our place. That and getting ready for a visit to Denver, Santa Fe, and then in October to San Miguel de Allende to teach. Hope you're being creative and eating well. xoxo